


Petrichor

by emily_420



Series: verbum suggerit [1]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-30
Updated: 2015-08-30
Packaged: 2018-04-18 02:05:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4688393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Petrichor: the smell of dry rain on the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petrichor

**Author's Note:**

> written for an ask meme on tumble. might make a series out of these when i've written more of them

Rain, Kagura thought, is different on Earth, different on the planet of light and hope and different against dry hard soil rather than an endless swathe of concrete. It isn’t constant, for one – she didn’t think they had rain at all until a month and a half into her stay when she smelt the atmosphere change and heard the tell-tale pitter-patter against her umbrella. 

She went undercover, then, pressed her back against a shop window, taking shelter under a stranger’s awning (that was all she’d done since she’d left home) and stared out at the gloomy grey sky and the downpour streaking everything over. It was winter, then, and she was told the following day that the rainy season was summer. Winter rain, Kagura thought, was just like the rain back home, cold and wet and miserable, not very heavy but enough to be a nuisance, creeping into her boots and sticking her clothes to her sides. She used to put her umbrella down when it rained, back home, but she didn’t then, because she didn’t want to see this sky. She’d basked in the sun and she knew its warmth and the grey sky was a bad memory water-logging her mood. 

Under the grey winter sky in the freezing winter rain, Kagura felt her age distinctly. As much as she called herself a woman, she was cold and alone, small and shivering on an alien planet without much purpose. Under the winter rain, Kagura longed for the mornings in a time long passed when she and her brother would crawl into their mother’s bed, snuggle up to her sides and talk to her until it was morning proper and they could no longer hide away from the world in the warm sanctuary of her bedroom. She would smooth their hair and hold their hands and talk to them about the day to come and at the time, Kagura felt happiness bubble in her chest. Looking back on it, it had become misty with time, and she pushed back her tears and shoved rice down her throat to cover that pesky lump of melancholy. 

Rain on Earth, Kagura found in her first summer, now staying at the Yorozuya, changes throughout the year. Where winter rain reminded her of home, dreary and dismal drizzling, summer brought storms. Summer brought rippling thunder and pounding sheets drowning everything out and lighting flashing in the distance. Summer rain was a relief; it cut through the heat and humidity as a reason to celebrate, and rather than hiding away from it, they – Kagura and her small new family – ran out into it and let it fill their hands and their buckets (water isn’t cheap, apparently). Tama watched on, clutching her broom, as Sadaharu jumped around, his fur getting matted and smelly, and Shinpachi laughed and took his glasses off, useless in the rain, and Catherine and Gin shouted that they wouldn’t take care of them if they got the flu even though they were out in it themselves, too. 

The next morning the sky was clear blue as if it had never rained at all, but the ground was still wet and Shinpachi was sneezing. It wasn’t as hot after a storm, Kagura found, and, smelling the memory of the rain in the air, she thought, this is why I came to Earth. Like the seasons, she was changing; like the sky, her eyes were now unclouded. 


End file.
